CMLL back on indefinite pause, Fenix injury, MLW Azteca

CMLL Goes Back on Pause

There is no CMLL show today. We’re not sure when there will be another.

CMLL issued a statement Tuesday afternoon announcing the next six scheduled shows (Friday, Sunday, Tuesday in Arena Mexico, Saturday in Arena Coliseo, Monday in Arena Puebla, Tuesday in Arena Coliseo Guadalajara) are all postponed. That would leave the next scheduled show as of January 14th. CMLL’s Ticketmaster site has taken tickets off sale for every show on sale through the end of the month, so they can’t be sure they’ll be able to run on the 14th. Emir Ortiz, Arena Puebla head of logistics, told El Sol del Puebla that he believes Arena Puebla will be closed at least through the January 17th show though it is not officially confirmed at this point.

CMLL’s Guadalajara Facebook page was announcing talent for the now-canceled Tuesday show as recently as a few hours before the postponement. Wednesday’s CMLL Informa had no hint that this was coming, so this seems to be a decision that came together quickly on Thursday. A wire story mentioning the cancelations got picked up in many news sites in Mexico, though with no additional information. This is the third time CMLL has shut down since the start of the pandemic, previously happening in March 2020 and December 2021.

There are no new regulations in Mexico City, Puebla, or Guadalajara requiring shows to be halted. Mexico City has not ordered a widespread shut down of events, though there is talk of limitations on fans in this week’s LigaMX season-opening week. It will not be surprising if an increased wave of COVID hospitalization sparks a sudden change in Mexico event policy in the next few weeks, but CMLL is currently being more strict than required. No other lucha libre promotion has called off shows; they’re going on as normal this weekend with Three Kings Day celebrations for the moment. Mexico has let different states manage themselves, so it’s unlikely that the Guadalajara building got new regulations in the same moment as the Mexico one. The Puebla article says this decision was one dictated to them by the CMLL central office. CMLL’s statement says this is a preventive measure to protect everyone from COVID, and it’s a reasonable assumption that the biggest immediate concern is to an outbreak inside of their roster.

CMLL has continued to test their wrestlers for COVID regularly. On Informa, Mistico mentioned luchadors making the trip to Guadalajara get tested for COVID in Mexico City twice – before leaving for Guadalajara and after returning to the city. (He tested negative.) CMLL was doing regular testing of everyone midweek last I heard. I’m guessing, but this sort of shut down response suggests those tests went very poorly this week and CMLL made the wise decision to go on pause. The only COVID positive wrestler in CMLL that’s public is Polvora, but Ultimo Guerrero, Volador Jr., Lluvia, Angel de Oro, and Espanto Jr. have all missed shows this past week. (CMLL Informa included an offhand mention that Raziel had surgery and that’s why he’s been missing.) CMLL had problems with waves of COVID positives going into the 2020 and 2021 Aniversario shows, probably should’ve considered going on pause then, but never was going to because those are the Aniversario shows. This week’s Best of 2021 show looked fun but was an easier one to push back. Again, we only know that Polvora is positive and not about anyone else, so this is a paragraph about reasonable guesswork but still guesswork. Whatever’s going on, hopefully everyone makes it through OK and CMLL can safely resume shows soon.

CMLL made sure to plug their TV shows, which seems to happen more when there are no live shows and they have time to do other things. CMLL’s TV shows are one to two week behind live events normally, so they won’t start showing the effects of this pause until next weekend. CMLL has plenty of unaired matches and could just recycle matches between the 5 (!) networks they’re on or go back to showing older material. Empty arena shows are a possibility, but those only happened because Mexico City wouldn’t allow fans in and that doesn’t seem like the problem now.

MVS lists CMLL as airing on Saturday afternoons at 1 pm CT, but that show hasn’t aired the last two weeks. I’m not sure if it was a holiday thing or if it was pre-empted. The show is still airing it’s Sunday noon slot.

A useless semantic paragraph over postponed versus canceled: the lineups are postponed – CMLL will still run the Best of 2021 show when they can get to it – but CMLL isn’t going to run like extra shows a week to make up for the ones they’ve canceled. If you have tickets to a canceled should, you’ll just be able to use them on the normal shows they run, whenever they get back to normal.

The list of canceled shows suggests Arena Coliseo Guadalajara’s return to Sunday shows was a one-off thing that was presented as more than that. It’s not mentioned among the shows called off and CMLL Guadalajara had not advertised a show for 01/09.

That Arena Puebla interview mentions attendance had slowly been growing over the last few weeks, though just enough to cover operating expenses.

Valiente Jr. and a new Pequeno Polvora were announced as debuting on Sunday’s show. Maybe we’ll see them when CMLL restarts. We still have never seen Astral return to CMLL after he was re-introduced during the first shutdown.

Other News

IWRG (SUN) 01/09/2022 Arena Naucalpan
1) Benga Lee & Sagitarius vs Baronessa & Satania
2) Hell Boy & Noisy Boy vs Black Dragón & Shalom
3) Asterboy, Freelance, Hijo De Dos Caras vs Cerebro Negro, Dick Angelo 3G, Karaoui
4) Diva Salvaje & Jessy Ventura vs Alpha Wolf & Dragón Bane
5) Hijo del Alebrije © vs Hijo del Fishman [IWRG JUNIORS]

This is IWRG’s Three Kings’ Day show. Tickets are free for children with a paying adult, so this should be a big crowd. Fishman won the title shot on last week’s show.

IWRG announced they’d have shows on Sundays during January and February. That implies no Tuesday or Thursday shows, neither of which were drawing particularly well. IWRG is also quietly filming season 2 of their Tryout series in Arena Naucalpan to air sometime later, so there may be some scheduling conflicts. That Sunday show has less people than usual.

Fenix suffered a dislocated arm near the close of Wednesday’s AEW Dynamite. The injury looked horrible, Fenix’s arm bending the wrong way on a landing outside the ring, but early reports are it was not as damaging as it seemed. He may be back in a “few weeks”, which did not seem at all likely when we saw the injury. Fenix thanked everyone for their supports in an Instagram message. Fenix and Pentagon lost the AEW tag team titles in that match, which appeared to be the planned result prior to the finish. They were seemingly moving into an AEW feud with Malachi Black, and it’s possible Penta will just do that as a single for now.

Figuring out how AAA is going to handle the situation is a lot harder. The Lucha Brothers were scheduled to challenge for the tag titles against FTR on January 30th in Merida and wrestle Hermanos Lee on February 19 at Rey de Reyes. It seemed likely the Lucha Brothers were going to win the tag titles from the AEW team and then lose them to Dragon Lee & Dralistico, though that was far from certain. Fenix being out “a few weeks” could mean he’s able to come back for Rey de Reyes but not the January show; any decision AAA makes is probably going to have to wait until they know Fenix’s exact timetable. Like with Kenny Omega at TripleMania Regia, there’s no obviously simple solution to replace one half of the big main event for either show, just a lot of ideas that might be OK.

Getting CONCACAFed, a soccer Substack, has an article on the AAA/Charly alternate Liga MX jersies. The Sports Marketing Manager at Charly (Jesus Salazar) says they saw AAA was having their 30th anniversary and reached out to them for a collaboration. The original idea was for each teams with “a real-life lucha libre legend” but the jersey designers felt the fans would react better to a new character connected solely to the team. Perhaps AAA informed them about dealing the ups and downs of dealing with real-life lucha libre legends. There are still plans for the futbol mascot luchadors to show up in AAA at some point.

AAA says they’re airing a special on their women’s champions matches this week on Space, which is the same episode they aired three weeks ago. Next week’s episode should also be a repeat episode, with new material airing again on the 22nd.

MLW uploaded the first of their “MLW Azteca” shows, matches taped on and before the December 3rd Tijuana show. The first episode included a trios with Arez & Aramis (good though MLW doesn’t know who’s actually in the match), a Psycho Clown/Richard Holliday match (not good), and a tag match with Pagano & Alexander Hammerstone versus Black Taurus & King Muertes (good when they were running through barricades.) The main event set up a Pagano/Hammerstone title match on 01/21 in Dallas in a falls count anywhere match. Good luck to all involved. The AAA/The Crash guys who aren’t MLW regulars just exist on the show as space fillers around the contracted guys, but it’s still something like a Crash show with the unsigned guys working hard in hopes to get noticed. The rest of the matches should air on Thursdays the next few weeks.

Impact has their Hard to Kill PPV this Saturday. Laredo Kid will wrestle in a four-way with Jake Something, Ace Austin and Chris Bey in the kickoff show on YouTube at 6:30 pm. Laredo Kid will probably be part of a very good match and then get pinned, but at least it’ll be free on YouTube. Black Taurus doesn’t appear booked; he may second Rosemary on the main show.

GCW announced Gringo Loco, Demonic Flamita, Arez versus Bandido, Laredo Kid and ASF for their 01/23 PPV.

Super Crazy made a surprise appearance on the 01/05 NOAH show as part of Perros del Mal Japon, with NOSAWA announcing the group had signed him to a year contract. In el Sol de Tulancingo, Super Crazy said he’d actually just be in Japan for a few more weeks but he was happy to be associated with the group.

DTU says they’re returning to Arena Aficion at some point soon, but are waiting for the health situation to improve before announcing an official state.

LuchaWorld has the latest Lucha Report.

LA Park received a sports award (and a long bio) in Monclova.